Anti War Protest I would like to congratulate the organizers of yesterdays Ilkley Grammar school walk out war protest, well done, oh yes well done, on the hottest and sunniest day of the year so far you managed to get the majority of the school to abandon lessons for a day in the sun. I would love to think that the greater part of the school population came out because they are socially aware, politically motivated bright young things. I would stand up and applaud if todays students would protest about anything, whether I agreed with them or not I would like to se them saying something about their world. But the truth is, the playstation generation cannot be bothered. Let us look at a few things surrounding the 'protest', the weather first, yesterday was a rare t-shirt day, March weather can be horizontal sleet, I doubt the school would have walked in a downpour. Why have the protest on a schoolday ? Because the organisers know full well had they called for a rally on Saturday, support would have been minimal. The children did walk out though, but what did they do, the ones I spoke to did the following.............Four played golf, two wandered around the shops for a while then went home, one went swimming in her boyfriends outdoor heated pool (well, this is Ilkley), and none actually protested. Not a representative sample I will agree, and I do acknowledge that a group of students did protest in the centre of Ilkley, for a short while. Many other student activists were to be seen playing football in the park, eating ice cream or playing skip stones on the river. Maybe it was a combined anti war - footballers wages - ice cream prices - river pollution demo, but I don't think so. I would like to ask the organisers a couple of questions, raise your hands now please, how many of you knew about the protests concerning the treatment of the Marsh Arabs by the Iraqi regime ? And how many of you marched with them ? So that would be few and none then. By your involvement you say the war should not take place, but are you saying by your absence that Saddam Hussain has your consent to destroy utterly an ancient culture and scatter its people to the winds ? Of course not, that would be a foolish assumption. Why then did you not protest about the fate of these people ? Because it wasn't on TV everyday, you are not actually very politically motivated at all, and you couldn't be bothered. I don't want this to sound as if I'm knocking the children for having a go, because I'm not. I am saying though that yesterdays 'protest' was ill thought out and caused problems and worry for people, did you ever stop to think about the younger children ? Parents who had assumed that their younger children were safe at school came home to find that their offspring had in fact spent the day wandering the streets. I am accusing the organisers of not being motivated enough, and I am right. Our universities, once hotbeds of radical politics and activism, have become hotbeds of dance and ecstasy culture. In a year, or two, or three, as this wave of political activists bacome 18, the percentage of voters participating in elections will not rise, because they can't be bothered. It's easier to sit in the pub and whinge about the world than it is to do something. It's easier to play and extra half hour on the X-Box than it is to write to your MP to raise an issue that concerns you. It's easier to piss and moan than it is to stand up and be counted. Yorkshiresoul puts his money where his mouth is, the world is not right, valuable habitats and species are vanishing all the time, do something about it, the world is not right, trees and woodlands are cut down for housing and commerce and not replaced, do something about it, people around the world suffer needlessly from conditions that can be alleviated for the price of a few beers, help them, children around the world work instead of getting an education because their parents are too poor, help them get what you take for granted. These are some of my concerns, and although I'm only one man, I'm doing something about them. For all the young people that will be marching again against the war, or against anything, in a few days or weeks, I salute you, well done, you need to get the rest of the playstation generation with you, get them motivated, get them of their arses and doing something, it's an uphill struggle I know, but the world is not right, and we are not doing enough about it.